


Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

by jayemgriffin



Series: Godhunter [3]
Category: Scion (Tabletop RPG)
Genre: Gen, TBD AU, TBD Dark!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6688174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayemgriffin/pseuds/jayemgriffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the heart of Chicago, there is a prison. Of course, that means there’s prisoners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. State and Van Buren

It wouldn’t make sense if she were comfortable in the Loop. She was a South Side girl born and bred, and this was well outside of her home turf. Hell, she was barely used to tourists wielding cameras and the lack of vacant lots. She didn’t belong here; it wasn’t supposed to feel natural.

Deep down, though, she knew that didn’t entirely explain the faint buzzing in the back of her skull, or her innate reluctance to come downtown. She’d known that it would’ve made her research a lot easier if she’d just gone straight to Harold Washington Library, but she’d been putting it off, bouncing around the South Side from small public library to small public library, trying to trace the mythologies of gods who were somehow able to die, as well as the strange, demigodly beings called Scions, and the legends of Chicago itself. 

Unsurprisingly, though, she’d eventually found herself unable to continue without physically hauling herself to the main branch, so she’d finally cleared her schedule and hopped on the green line. It was strange, though; as soon as she’d passed Adams and Wabash, she’d felt the hair on the back of her neck start standing up. It felt kind of like the Scions, but much older - like decades and decades of Scions stacked on top of each other. It was unsettling, but not nearly as bad as the weird itching sensation that had settled inside her head shortly after she’d walked into the library and booked a study room with Kay’s old library card.

She slammed her current book shut, frustrated. For the main branch of the Chicago Public Library, they sure didn’t have much of what she was looking for. Admittedly, she wasn’t entirely sure what exactly she was looking for, but rulebooks for some kind of roleplaying game weren’t remotely helpful. Everything she could find went over the same basic stories again and again, with the tiniest variations. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find anything she didn’t already know. She rubbed her forehead. It was probably time to call it a day; she wasn’t going to find anything out like this. Well, not here, anyway.

Leaving the stack of books on the table, she walked out of the library, determined to track down the source of the irritating feeling. She followed the tracks west, feeling them thrum with some kind of supernatural power. It wasn’t a threat, though; she could tell. She was considerably less sure about the other feeling.

It got stronger and stronger as she walked, until she hit Wells and realized it had lessened a bit. So she hung a right and kept walking, feeling it buzz inside her skull, increasing until she passed Jackson. She doubled back, wondering if it was the Fed building (Kay had never really trusted banks either), but then she happened to look up and realized that it wasn’t that at all.

Maybe going crazy was a process. Maybe it started with hearing weird voices in your room and ended with being scared out of your mind by a statue. Maybe she’d finally lost it, and it was time to run wild and howl at the moon.

She had the running part down, anyway. She made it three blocks past the river before she dared to look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of this fic, Scions with Epic Perception can sense other Scions and Titans and big magic stuff, ok.


	2. What You Don't Know

There were more. Five of them, in fact. She’d counted. The past two weeks had been spent carefully pacing the Loop, figuring out where these things were hidden or trapped or whatever. It had been a really unpleasant two weeks, spent in a neighborhood where she didn't belong, seeking out profoundly terrifying beings beyond her understanding. She decided that she hated modern art.

She kicked a stone aimlessly along the footpath. She’d taken to spending time here, in the green space along the lake shore. The wind off the lake was a welcome relief from the mid-July heat. There were tourists, but that was unavoidable, she supposed. It was just outside of the Loop, and maybe it was stupid, but she felt safer here, like there was a wall between her and those things. She figured they must be what Kay had called Titans, because she’d heard plenty of stories about Titanspawn, but these were so much worse than she’d ever imagined. 

The first one she’d seen had been the worst. It felt kind of like the glowy thing at her Visitation, but she couldn't tell whether the similarity was superficial or profound. She wasn’t too curious, either. 

There wasn't the slightest doubt in her mind that these things were dangerous. The immense rage, the bottomless hunger, the cold indifference that she felt radiating from them were on the verge of incomprehensible. It was clear that they didn't want to be there, and she wasn't inclined to change that. If they weren’t actually worse than the gods, they were at least on the same level. She wished she could stay away from those freaks of nature for the rest of her life. It would be so much easier if she could just go back home and forget about the faceless statue on top of the Board of Trade, the sickening blockiness of the thing on Clark and Randolph, the vicious, bloody arches that didn’t look anything like a flamingo.

But she couldn’t. They were here, in her city, and they weren’t going anywhere. She had no information on them at all, and she had to start somewhere. There was nothing about those things in the libraries. She’d checked, even in Harold Washington, as her skin tried to crawl off her body and away from the statue nearby. She’d found plenty of information about the sculptures themselves, but nothing about the things that lived inside them. The Internet was likewise less than helpful; too many threads running in too many different directions, and all of them led nowhere. She didn't have anyone else to ask. If Kay was still alive… She shook off the thought. Procrastinating wouldn't make it easier. The one on Washington had seemed the most active. Hopefully it felt like a chat. She squared her shoulders and walked back into the Loop.


	3. Selva Oscura

She stood across from Daley Plaza, testing the walls between the world of Chicago and the other place, where it really was. She could see, or feel, or sense some kind of barrier. It was woven of shadows and power, reinforced with belief, and for a long time, she couldn’t understand it, until she blinked or the light shifted or both, and then there was a small gap, and then there was a widening hole, and then there was a way in - 

\- and then she was in a place. The chained being smiled at her with too many teeth. 

“You are not one of them. Have you come to set me free?”

The fear she’d felt earlier was gone, replaced by an all-encompassing calm, like she was carved of stone. She felt much bigger, and much older than she really was. Her first reaction to its question was disgust, but she swallowed that quickly. “Maybe. That depends. I want answers.”

“What kind of answers?”

She deliberated for a moment. “What are you?”

It grinned again. “My name belongs to others now, to them. They took it away from me and they call me Toolmaker, but I am more than that. I am the spirit of discovery. I am the want to know, to uncover, to learn.”

“To learn what?”

Another fearsome grin. “Everything. It is all mine to know.” Its eyes were glowing, fathomless, greedy.

Her skin prickled in spite of her, but she could feel her blood pulsing beneath it. “Who are they?”

“The god-children that locked us up. There are so many. Your brothers and sisters. You have their blood, but you are not one of them. Will you free me?”

She heard in its answer the promise of more knowledge, forbidden to men and gods alike. It whispered unspoken hints of single words that could bring down skyscrapers, of inventions yet uncrafted that could crush everything before them, of secrets that could rend the world in two. Set me free, the thing offered without offering, and you can wield power beyond what even the gods could dream of.

She’d never been asked an easier question. 

“No.” She turned to go, and it screeched in incoherent rage. She shot a granite-coated glare over her shoulder, and stepped back out into the world of humans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anything I've described in this chapter is remotely possible in canon. I have no idea if the Tool Maker is OOC or not. Just roll with it.


	4. Enemy of My Enemy

She’d had enough of the Loop for one day, so she started meandering back south. (Maybe someday she’d think about taking the L again. Maybe.) Without thinking too hard about it, she found herself back in _that_ cafe, drinking a dirty horchata. She relaxed, finally, letting herself blend back into the mortal world, immersing herself in the sounds of normal people discussing normal things. Like how expensive coffee was nowadays, and the nightclub that had just opened up in Greater Grand Crossing, and whether the Beatles were better than the Rolling Stones, and the Titans imprisoned in downtown Chicago - 

She had too much self-control to whip around and demand to know more, especially since the voices - both women, she thought - were talking rather quietly. Judging from the spark of recognition in her blood, they were Scions. Her hand closed around the grip of her pistol reflexively, but they were in public. So she settled back in her seat, took another sip of her drink, and focused on the murmured conversation behind her. She waited, and listened, and sharpened her awareness, catching subtle glimpses from the corners of her eyes. 

The woman who had her back to her was perhaps middle-aged, and on the shorter side. She was talking to a strikingly beautiful young woman with turquoise hair peeking out from under her hijab. The harder she concentrated, the better she could hear them. The older woman was giving the younger what sounded like a history lesson. About Chicago, and about the strange things trapped inside random sculptures - they were Titans, after all - and about something called the Conclave. It seemed to be a secret organization of Scions that had something to do with the prison. This, she assumed, was what the Toolmaker-thing had been talking about.

Their conversation drifted off into far less interesting topics, but she continued eavesdropping in the hope that they would let something else slip. (She couldn’t begin to fathom who Emdi was, but she really doubted that the younger woman should date her. That sounded all different kinds of doomed.) They didn’t mention the prison or the Titans again, though - they just got up to leave. Before she could put a thought together, her drink was in the trash, her safety was off, and she was trailing them, sticking to the shadows as she’d been taught.

Then they turned into an alley. It was so easy she was almost suspicious. This wasn’t a patrol or a search party - just two friends having coffee. She had the element of surprise, and she could be far away from here by the time anyone recognized the sound of a silenced gunshot. Two Scions, right there in front of her, beckoning death.

Her safety clicked back on, and she watched them turn a corner. Kay would’ve killed her, but then, Kay was already dead. The time might come when she had to kill the two Scions. Someday, she might have to slit their throats and rip their hearts out, but for now, she knew that there were far more dangerous things in Chicago. She was alone now; she had to prioritize.

(It wasn’t anything more than that; she couldn’t allow it to be.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that a spark of sunlight on the horizon of this AU? I don't know yet. Watch this space.


End file.
